Bremer stated "I would escape my ugly reality by pretending that I was living with a television family and there was no yelling at home or no one to hit me.
[6][7] After graduating from high school, Bremer briefly attended Milwaukee Area Technical College, studying aerial photography, art, writing, and psychology; he dropped out after one semester.
In 1971, Bremer was demoted to kitchen work after customers complained that he talked to himself and that "he whistled and marched in tune with music played in the dining room.
On October 16, 1971, after an argument, Bremer moved from his parents' house to a three-room one-bedroom apartment near Marquette University, where he lived until May 9, 1972.
Three days later, dressed in a business suit with a "Vote Republican" sticker on, wearing sunglasses and with a revolver in his pocket, Bremer went out intending to assassinate Nixon, but found no opportunity.
Three days later, on April 13, Bremer thought he saw Nixon's limousine outside of the Centre Block, but it had disappeared by the time he could retrieve his revolver from his hotel room.
On the afternoon of May 13, Kalamazoo police received an anonymous phone call saying a suspicious looking person had been sitting in a car near the National Guard Armory.
Bremer was photographed at the rally that evening, where he had a clear opportunity to shoot his target, but according to his diary, he did not do so because he might have shattered some glass and blinded some "stupid 15-year-olds" who stood nearby.
He was dressed in patriotic red, white, and blue, wearing his new campaign button that read "Wallace in 1972", and dark sunglasses.
Based on this reception, Wallace refused to shake hands with anyone present, denying Bremer the opportunity to carry out his plan.
At approximately 4 p.m., Bremer pushed his way forward, aimed his .38 revolver at Wallace's abdomen and opened fire, emptying the weapon before he could be subdued.
In it they found blankets, pillows, a blue steel 9 mm 13-shot Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol, binoculars, a woman's umbrella, a tape recorder, a portable radio with police band, an electric shaver, photographic equipment, a garment bag with several changes of clothes, a toilet kit, a 1972 copy of a Writers' Yearbook, and the two books he had borrowed from the Milwaukee public library ten days earlier.
[citation needed] In a widely noted article, journalist Seymour Hersh claimed that secret recordings of Nixon prove that, within hours of the assassination attempt, the president and a top aide dispatched a political operative, E. Howard Hunt, to Milwaukee with plans to surreptitiously enter Bremer's apartment and plant the campaign literature of Democratic contender George McGovern.
[20][21] In his memoir, Hunt reports that the day after the assassination attempt he received a call from Chuck Colson, asking him to break into Bremer's apartment and plant "leftist literature to connect him to the Democrats".
Hunt recalls that he was highly skeptical of the plan due to the apartment being guarded by the FBI but investigated the feasibility of it anyway at Colson's insistence.
[23] Bremer's trial in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was condensed to five days and began on July 31, 1972, only two and a half months after he had shot Wallace.
Arthur Marshall, for the prosecution, told the court that Bremer, while disturbed and in need of psychiatric help and treatment, knew what he was doing, had been seeking glory, and was still sorry that Wallace had not died.
Although Bremer's actions, arrest, trial, and conviction attracted media and public attention, he soon faded into comparative obscurity.
As he had predicted in May 1972, he did not reach the level of infamy of Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth, both of whom had assassinated presidents.
The diary was eventually sold to an official of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who donated it to UAB's Reynolds Historical Library.
However, the result of the assassination attempt, combined with changes in Wallace's personal and general political circumstances, ended his presidential aspirations.